Story & Lesson Highlights with Justin Makalii of Los Angeles

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Justin Makalii. Check out our conversation below.

Justin, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. Are you walking a path—or wandering?
I’m dead set on the path I’m on. I know what has to be done and what it takes to get where I want to go. It’s my personal “valley of the shadow of death” with temptations from others to go other ways that don’t benefit me. What my path leads to? Peace, fulfillment, and success. I will say it’s not easy but with all things worthwhile; nothing ever is. Perseverance is key.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Justin Makalii a.k.a. Voidwalker, I’m a Los Angeles based photographer, cinematographer, and producer. My brand is Voidwalker Creative, we’re a brand that finds the art within the absence.

At The Creative we collaborate with creators and brands to design strategic content roadmaps. We don’t just shoot pictures and videos, we manufacture outcomes that are impossible to ignore.

What really makes us special is our approach. We don’t want to play things safe, if getting results means breaking some rules and roadblocks, then so be it.

As for what were working on, I’d be here all day telling you what’s what. Voidwalker this year as made connections with some new partners and we’re producing projects slated for release in the coming year. As always stay tuned.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I always believed that your future seemed predetermined and that you had little to no control about that “fact”.

In school, I wasn’t the greatest student so I figured university wasn’t in the works and I would have to go to community college or learn a trade and that would be my future.

Life presents you with times where you have to make a split second decision on what you want to do with your life. For me it was in an Algebra class that I was flunking out of. I wanted a change and I knew I couldn’t change things from a classroom in Chino, so I walked out then and there with a goal of being a creative by any means necessary; here I am 9 years later doing exactly that.

My point being, nothing in life is predetermined. You can control the outcomes, you just have to burn the boats and put in the work.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Very recently actually. My family had suddenly made the plan to move out of California. I had the choice to leave with them and make a new life out there with the skills I had but that meant leaving my friends, my network, and everything I had worked for out here in LA. I chose to stay and I had learned quickly the difficulty that would come with that choice.

I was on/off employed in a dying Film/TV industry and struggling to make ends meet with the jobs I had. The move had taken so much time away from me that I was beginning to lose touch with my contacts and I thought this was the end of the road for me. I thought we gave it our best shot and this was the scoreboard at the end of the game.

Quitting seemed so easy and I had opportunities to pursue something else right then and there. Thankfully with the help of some friends and some self reflection, I made the choice to push through. New opportunities in my field made themselves present.

Not to be seem to overdramatic but quitting to me is akin to death and to put it simply; I will not die.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
No, there’s definitely parts of myself that are cut off from the public or are given in doses. I think being an artist does require some level of vulnerability and transparency. I do retain a lot of my personality that I display through some of my projects but it’s intentional; the idea is to get the viewer to look deeper and challenge their initial thoughts about what they see.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: When do you feel most at peace?
I’m the most at peace when I’m working on my crafts whether that’s behind the camera, writing in FadeIn or Pages, or deep in a edit in Lightroom. It’s a time where I just forget about everything else going except the work. Those are the times where you know you’ve found your calling.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://voidwalker-creative.squarespace.com/
• Instagram: @i.am.voidwalker
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@voidwalkercreative